Warner Bros has released the first trailer for the Ben Affleck-directed big screen adaptation of the Chuck Hogan novel The Prince of Thieves which is titled The Town. Affleck stars as a career thief who falls in love with the manager of a bank he robbed. I know that might not sound like an interesting concept for a movie, but the trailer presents it as a gripping dramatic thriller.

The film co-stars Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chris Cooper. I, like many others, was extremely impressed by Affleck’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, and it looks like he may have stepped up his game with his The Town. And you can’t forget that he also won an academy award for co-writing the screenplay for Good Will Hunting. Affleck worked on the screenplay with Peter Craig and Chuck Hogan.

The trailer will be attached to prints of Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which hits theaters on Friday. But you don’t have to wait until then to see it. Watch it now embedded after the jump, and please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Here is the official plot synopsis:

Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) is an unrepentant criminal, the de facto leader of a group of ruthless bank robbers who pride themselves in stealing what they want and getting out clean. With no real attachments, Doug never has to fear losing anyone close to him. But that all changed on the gang’s latest job, when they briefly took a hostage–bank manager, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). Though they let her go unharmed, Claire is nervously aware that the robbers know her name… and where she lives. But she lets her guard down when she meets an unassuming and rather charming man named Doug…not realizing that he is the same man who only days earlier had terrorized her. The instant attraction between them gradually turns into a passionate romance that threatens to take them both down a dangerous, and potentially deadly, path.

Watch the trailer in High Definition on Apple. The Town is set tot hit theaters on September 17th, 2010.